The next morning moved even faster than the day before had for Adah. Her team was leaving early to head to the fashion designer Lina’s studio, as apparently this first meeting would entail more than a few simple measurements. Lina wanted to get to know the girls on a more personal level, to see how they handled themselves when they were transformed and when they weren’t.

  She already had a theme chosen for this series of costumes, and Adah and her teammates suited that theme well enough to hire them, but there was still room in her mind for further inspiration. Seeing the girls in person, having them try on random pieces Lina had lying around, and posing them for reference photos were all ways of spurring that inspiration. This dedicated attention was another benefit of going boutique, Michel had said. A big brand name might get their photos in front of more eyes, but until they were truly famous, the brands would see them as nothing but replaceable mannequins.

  Adah didn’t need him to explain the value of having some influence over Lina’s designs. The Last Light’s image was one of its most important projects at the moment. They needed their own recognizable style, and wearing the same outfits that would fill every department store in a few weeks time was not the way to accomplish that.

  Of course, the Last Light was fighting battles on multiple fronts right now. In order to have the time to strike their own unique image, they needed to relieve the burden of these C-Rank missions Secretary Thibault had heaved onto them.

  Adah had assumed the man would want to meet in person again to discuss such a significant decision, but his assistant Elise ended up calling Grace first thing in the morning to share that his office would be reversing its prohibition. The other regions would be allowed to claim C-Rank missions in Region 4 once more.

  “He’s being surprisingly cooperative,” Grace said as she and the magical girls piled into her car.

  “It’s suspicious,” Adah agreed. “I wouldn’t take this as him rolling over for us. Most likely, someone whispered a new plan in his ear, and this is step one in making it happen. Still, it’s the outcome we wanted. For now, we don’t need to antagonize him further.”

  “You don’t want to make a big deal out of this?” Rika asked. “Throw it in his face and show off what a failure he is?”

  Adah shook her head and said, “We don’t need to make a show of it just yet. The failure I want people to focus on right now is how he handled the hydra—that’s the one that matters. All this regional bullshit was just that: bullshit. Ekki needs to stay on people’s minds if he’s going to get better, and people need to know that Thibault is the reason for his injury, not to mention the destruction of that neighborhood.”

  “Hit him with the punch that hurts the most,” Ami agreed.

  “Yet, we’re giving up some power in the process,” Rika said.

  “It wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway,” Adah said. “This business with the C-Ranks was useful leverage to get what we wanted out of Thibault earlier, but it’s quickly becoming a burden. If we rely on that arrangement too much, we’ll be chaining ourselves to Thibault just as much as he was chained to us. That would come back to bite us eventually. Having something to hold over his head isn’t as important as freeing ourselves up for new opportunities.”

  “More B-Ranks,” Emi said.

  “And jobs like today’s,” Adah said. “We let the C-Ranks go to focus on other things, and Thibault lets them go to get some control back. We handed some chips over to him, but we’ve gained something in return. It’s probably a net neutral outcome for our war.”

  Grace gave a quick look to Adah, who had once again claimed the front passenger seat. A captain’s benefit, if you will.

  “Just because neither of us are making a buzz about opening the C-Ranks back up, don’t think Thibault made that decision lightly,” Grace warned. “If I put myself in his shoes, the only reason I’d back out of that plan is to create a situation where I don’t need you. As soon as our agency is irrelevant or redundant, he’ll put an end to us all at once.”

  “That’s why we’ll make him irrelevant first,” Adah said with a smile. “We’ll do what he couldn’t: build the magic users of our region into a force to be reckoned with. Lifting up the lower level teams in this region was the one good idea Thibault had. We’ll win this war by finding allies, not by fighting our enemy head-on.”

  Adah had been thinking about what Sheffa had said about competition among magical girls. That feeling of wanting to stay ahead of other teams was something people like Thibault used for their own gains. He had made DreamRise into his attack dog and gotten them to act against their own interests simply because of some beef they had with the Last Light.

  Perhaps Sheffa was right that no one could dispel that feeling entirely—Adah knew she still felt it even toward Sheffa’s own team—but why should magic users allow it to be used against them?

  Not every team or every person had to get along with each other. In fact, rivalries with some actual heat to them could give a huge boost to both teams’ popularities. At the same time, collaboration could be just as valuable.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  In either case, there didn’t have to be a loser. Not in the same way the system was currently designed. Just because one team rose didn’t mean another had to fall. This wasn’t a zero-sum game.

  Really, it shouldn’t have been viewed as a game at all. The system should have been designed to lift as many teams up as possible. At this point, they were humanity’s only line of defense against the Cruelties.

  “So what does that mean?” Ami said, “We’re gonna help other teams? We’re still getting our own act together.”

  “It’ll be a secondary goal,” Adah explained, “but it will still work in our favor. If Region 4 gets a better reputation among magical girl fans, that helps us as well. Right now, being the strongest team in Region 4 doesn’t mean anything to the average person. Top of the ladder here might not even be top 100 in the country. Why would someone in Region 1 bother to pay attention to what’s going on here, when they have dozens of superstars to fawn over in their own backyard?”

  “So how exactly do we help other teams grow?” Rika asked.

  Adah turned around in her seat to look at her teammates directly. She scrunched her face; Rika’s question was the toughest part of this plan to solve.

  “That’s what I’m still figuring out,” she admitted. “But it has to be an active effort on our part. The other magic users in the region have to know that we’re leading the way on this. We have to prove that we’re serious and capable. That we’re doing this for anyone who wants to be a part of it.”

  “Because that’s how you’ll gain their loyalty,” Grace mused. “And if they’re loyal to us, they won’t be swayed by Thibault.”

  Sure enough, their manager had picked up on Adah’s objective ahead of time. Surely they would have dominated yesterday’s game had they been on the same team.

  “We’re not in charge of licensing anyone, and we can’t offer them major funding, but Thibault’s office only uses its resources as threats and bribes anyway. We can offer other teams something they can trust,” Adah said.

  That was her hope, at least. As for how she’d bring her plan to fruition, Adah had this whole car ride to ponder.

  ☆☆☆

  Lina—Michel’s “good friend,” as he put it—worked out of Region 3. As a result of growing up in Region 1, working in Region 4, and having had plenty of occasion to visit Region 2 both as a child and now, this was the region Adah was least familiar with in Letria.

  Region 4 occupied the northeast of the continent, spanning from its rocky shores on the eastern side to the great forests of the north. It was the largest region, but also the least populated.

  Region 3 was tucked to the west, making up the northern half of Region 4’s western border while Region 2 occupied the southern half. Even farther southwest was Region 1, the second largest in Letria and most densely populated.

  Out of its two neighbors, Region 4 had far more in common with Region 3. The home of the Last Light was largely untouched by human development, with the Brume Forest in the north and its connected reserves taking up a third of the region’s area alone. The few urban areas in the region were spread across the south, separated by large swathes of farmland and the hills and marshes Adah’s team so often fought in.

  While Region 1 was almost one complete circuit of metropolitan activity, and Region 2 was full of loosely connected communities, Region 3 was almost a strange imitation of Region 4.

  Adah’s impression was that it was full of people who admired the slower lifestyle of Region 4, but weren’t interested in living every day at such a glacial pace. They enjoyed hiking and fishing, preferred local crafts and vendors over big brands, and their cities seemed to self-regulate toward a certain density of development. The people here desired the amenities of a place like Region 2 combined with the rural soul of Region 4.

  This place had its parks and land reserves, though the land was manicured in a way that the all-consuming Brume Forest wasn’t. The people here wanted to enjoy nature as an activity, not necessarily live at its mercy. Certainly no one here had a cabin as isolated from the rest of the world as Ketzia’s was.

  None of this mattered much to Adah, but she knew a rivalry existed between the two regions, particularly among the older residents of each. This went beyond magical girls—it was etched into the culture, though its flame faded with each generation.

  The differences between the region became obvious as Adah and her team drove into Ashill, the town in which Lina had set up shop. The roads turned smooth and quiet as soon as they entered town, as if the streets had been repaved only yesterday. Meanwhile, some less-frequented roads in Region 4’s capital were still made up of roughly maintained cobblestone. Every storefront in Ashill had a brightly colored sign and tall, welcoming windows, while plenty of shops in the Last Light’s neighborhood only featured a chalkboard by the door saying whether or not they were open.

  Lina’s studio was near the center of town, and its exterior matched the vibrant vibe of the stores Adah had seen earlier. Her signage featured the violet silhouette of a dress with a white musical note forming a sort of cravat atop its chest, accompanied by swirling lettering that spelled out the name of her brand: Magi-Melo.

  Grace parked her car in an open street spot right in front of the shop, and the four magical girls all rushed out, eager to stretch their legs. They walked up to the shop’s windows as a group, peering through the glass at a matching pair of costumes displayed on the other side.

  They were a pair of corset dresses, with the skirt cut short and layered with ruffled undercoats below and white lace on top. Their primary colors weren’t too different from Ami and Emi’s aquatic blue and green, but with how intricately the dresses were decorated, those primary colors almost became secondary.

  Adah thought it must have been a trick, a reflection from the window pane, but the dresses looked almost frosted over. The corset and skirt were trimmed with even more pure white lace, cut into strips so unbelievably narrow it seemed as though they had been drawn onto the main fabric with a pencil. Beyond the lace, the dresses were covered in every conceivable decoration—from pearls to silver snowflakes to tiny chains, satin ribbons, gems, and an ambient glistening Adah thought was magic even though she knew it couldn’t be. Despite all the decoration, the dress gave off no sense of chaos. Every adornment was placed exactly where it ought to be, with every piece contributing to a cohesive, glistening vision.

  Truthfully, they were flowers caught in the first frost, shining in the morning sun.

  The mesmerizing hold the dresses exerted on the girls was broken by the sound of the shop’s door swinging open and the ringing of the bell attached to it. A woman taller than even the twins emerged from the shop, took one look at each of the magical girls in turn, then grinned. The sharp angles of her face made Adah think she was part cat, and the fangs she revealed when she smiled convinced her of it.

  “Oh, this will be fun,” the woman said.